Earth Hour 2008!

Listen up all greenies and environmentally conscious business owners: The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has launched a dramatic call to action in an effort to raise awareness of climate change and show how joining together can make an enormous impact on the earth. On Saturday, March 29, 2008, individuals, businesses and local government officials in Atlanta, Phoenix, San Francisco and Chicago will join cities around the world—including Bangkok, Copenhagen, Manila, Sydney and Toronto—to encourage citizens to turn off all non-essential lights from 8 to 9 p.m. local time.

In addition to turning off lights, Earth Hour participants are being asked to replace older light bulbs with highly efficient compact fluorescent bulbs and to pledge to take actions to reduce their energy consumption on a daily basis. WWF’s corporate partners have not only pledged to turn off all non-essential lights during Earth Hour, but have also agreed to identify long-term ways to reduce energy usage.

Hello, New York City! Why aren’t we on the list of this year’s participants? Crazy that we’re not! Didn’t someone at the mayor’s office get the memo from the WWF announcing the success of last year’s inaugural Earth Hour in Sydney, Australia, where more than 2.2 million people threw their lights for an hour, resulting in a 10% drop in energy usage… (double what had been predicted)?

(Okay, okay, it happens—memos get lost from time to time)… so why don’t we show our true colors and go black for an hour in solidarity with the world this Saturday? Then, we can make a conscious effort to turn off all of our business lights at night and reduce personal light usage in order to take a real stand on this issue, and not on just one day a year! Let’s show the world how New Yorkers can impact energy usage. Now that’s something to get excited about! 

You can learn more about Earth Hour and sign up at www.earthhour.org.